'This will be the best Diwali we've ever had'

Amazon, at the fourth edition of its flagship Smbhav Summit in New Delhi on Thursday, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with India Post for an integrated cross-border logistics solution to boost Indian exports. It is also among the first e-commerce companies to leverage the Railways' Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) for faster delivery of products. RUSSELL GRANDINETTI, Senior Vice-President, International Consumer at Amazon, spoke to Aryaman Gupta and Nivedita Mookerji about the e-commerce major's 10-year journey in India, regulatory hurdles, geopolitical narrative, the upcoming festival season and more. Edited excerpts:

What benefits do you expect from the MoU with India Post and partnership with Railways' DFC?

With our new announcements, the interests of our business, the consumers, and our small and medium business partners are aligned. Everybody wins when our ability to transport goods around the country becomes cheaper, faster and more reliable. We have long had partnerships with the Railways but the ability to use these freight corridors to add to the speed, cost and reliability, will be great for us. This feeds into the India Post announcement, where we want to help improve the speed and scale at which Indian businesses can reach customers not just in India but across the world. We are in the early innings of this but Amazon may be the best positioned company in the world to enable this particular service... Within this year, we will surpass $8 billion in cumulative exports. Our goal is to grow that to $20 billion by 2025.

Do you expect these partnerships to give Amazon an edge over its competition?

Our competition is regular retail... E-commerce has come a long way but it is still a very small percentage of overall sales in India. Our goal is to offer faster, cheaper, more reliable supply and movement of goods for sellers. If we are lucky, this will differentiate Amazon as a business....

How has the 10-year journey been for Amazon in India, especially with reference to the regulatory challenges you have faced in the country?